When faith is facing with the law within the human biotechnologies.

Abstract

The article analyses the relationship between religious faith and the civil law, keeping in mind the possible interventions of the law in the field of the genetics and the procreation.

After having affirmed that the dialogue between religious faith and democratic regimens is becoming more and more urgent to avoid both religious fundamentalism and presumed moral neutrality of liberal democracies, the author says that the Roman Catholic religious perspective sets three fundamental demands for a correct relationship between faith and law: the anthropological demand, that is a man’s conception that requests the respect of the dignity of every human person; the epistemological demand, for which faith must not oppose to the scientific and rational search, but it must point out the sense of the same search, in the picture of the man’s aims; the principle of the acceptance of the democratic system, that must guarantee for every man the right to freedom and responsibility in a climate of dialogue and persuasion.

Finally, the article underlines the normative orientations about genetics and procreation that a vision centred on the dignity of the human person requires: 1. the protection of human individual, that is the guardianship of the right to the life of every innocent human being; 2. the principle of not-discrimination; 3. the prohibition of every not-therapeutic altering genetic intervention; 4. the prohibition of patenting of the human genome; 5. the promotion of the search about genetic therapy; 6. the protection of the professionals that work in the bio-technological laboratories.